In No. 102 of *Pravda*[19] I drew the attention of my comrade-readers to a feuilleton in *Luch* in Nos. 93 and 94.

I compared this feuilleton with articles titled "Disputed Questions"[20] that were being printed simultaneously in *Pravda*. I said: *Pravda* in these articles gives its readers facts and documents for resolving disputed questions of organization and tactics, while *Luch* in the indicated feuilleton offers gossip and personal attacks, which will not help workers sort out the dispute, but will only clutter their heads.

I said that the author of this feuilleton writes about the figures of 1905 in the very language used about them in the organs of frightened landowners and liberals infuriated at the workers.

*Luch* sent against me comrade German. Comrade German is a very decisive man who does not mince words. Therefore he berated me very roughly. I supposedly "want to mislead my comrade-readers," and I speak "deliberate falsehoods," and nothing of what I say actually occurred. Having accused me in this way of a whole series of crimes, comrade German lists the titles of a number of articles from *Luch* and ends his article at that.

Fine! But what about that feuilleton in *Luch*, which I actually did discuss and which I quoted? Comrade German in his entire article did not mention it with a single word, did not attempt to dispute the accuracy of the words I cited from it, offered nothing in opposition to my characterization of this feuilleton as inadmissible in a workers' press. How can this be? You heaped abuse upon me, my good fellow, with great vigor, and yet you were unable—indeed, did not even attempt—to refute a single phrase of what I said about *Luch*'s feuilleton.

Was there a feuilleton in Nos. 93 and 94 that I wrote about? There was. So what right do you have to write that "nothing of the sort actually happened"?

Is this feuilleton filled with gossip and squabbling instead of a calm analysis of disagreements? You did not dare say a word against this! What right do you have to suspect me of wishing to "mislead the comrades"?

Did you think about what you were writing? Did you consider that in accusing a contributor to a workers' newspaper of "deliberate falsehood" and a desire to "mislead readers," you must be prepared to answer—not to me, but to all those who stand behind *Pravda*, that is, to its workers-readers?

You undertook to defend *Luch* against my accusation that the feuilleton in its Nos. 93 and 94 does not clarify disputed questions, but clutters readers' heads with gossip and "personal attacks." And for this purpose you placed on the pages of that same *Luch* a series of unfounded accusations and outright slanders ("The Reader" [that is—me] wants to mislead comrade-readers), that is, you did precisely what I had accused *Luch* of in the feuilleton in No. 94. Your article confirmed my accusation against *Luch*, rather than refuting it.

Now perhaps you will say: all this happened because of my inexperience. Fine! But your little article was reviewed by the editorial board. Why did it not warn you? Why did it not point out to you that in accusing me, your first task should have been to refute my words about those facts under discussion, rather than to pass over these facts with new silence? Why? Obviously because the editorial board knew that everything I said about the feuilleton in Nos. 93 and 94 is true, knew that I could not be refuted. And therefore sent you out for the sake of simple abuse—that is, once again repeated the very practice for which I had accused it in my first article.

Did you—signing yourself as "a worker"—play a good role in the hands of *Luch*'s editorial board?

*Pravda* No. 114, May 19, 1913. Signature: A Reader

Printed according to the text of the newspaper *Pravda*